A/N: Just watched The Southern Raiders again today for fun. What Aang says at the end inspired me to write a short fic on the events that occurred after those with Kya's murderer.
Disclaimer: Bryke's.
Thereafter
"Zuko told me what you did… what you didn't do."
The walk is silent. Katara is crying. The occasional hiccup is a sure sign that she is struggling to keep quiet. In the haze of the rain Zuko watches her scrub at her eyes, as if getting rid of the tears will get rid of the sadness.
"You did what you thought was best," he finally says, but he isn't sure she can hear him through the pattering of the rain. She doesn't respond, and Zuko doesn't take it personally.
He thinks of that old man, crouched in the mud, snivelling for forgiveness and sobbing with relief that his pathetic life wasn't taken from him. He thinks of Katara destroying an innocent man from the inside by bending something in him. He thinks of how he defended Katara, how he fought every step of the way to get her to that man, and in the end she refused to kill him.
Lightning blinds them for a moment. It's pitch black outside, but they walk along the path as if they know where they're going.
Thunder crashes.
They walk through the now empty market place, stalls snapped shut to protect wares from the storm.
They don't know where they're going.
Zuko stays several steps behind Katara. He's not afraid. He is just wary.
They walk to the beach, where Appa is cowered under a cliff edge, as if the sheer rock will protect him from the force of the driving rain.
Katara stops on the beach. Zuko finally walks up beside her. He casts her a sidelong glance. She stares at the sand, fists clenched at her side, the black robe plastered to her skin, her hair slick with water.
"You're going to freeze," he tells her sternly. She shrugs, as if that is a response. Zuko's face puckers in a frown and he looks out at the ocean, but he can't see it in the darkness and the rain.
He's worried about her.
"Shall we go back or wait it out?" he asks her again, telling himself not to get frustrated with her. He sees her still contemplating it; Zuko can see in her dead eyes that she is thinking of going back, once more, and changing things, killing him, moving those icicles that one more inch—
"Don't," he says suddenly, loudly, through the rain. Katara flinches at the word but doesn't look at him, says nothing. His frown deepens. "Don't go back. You've made your choice. The right choice," he adds in a softer voice. Again, he doesn't know if she hears him through the rain.
She does.
"Was it?" she asks softly, finally looking up at him with wide eyes. He's never realized how shockingly blue they are, like the sky before a storm. "Was it really? I let that murderer go free! He killed my mother, and I—I let emotions control me." She lets out another sob and claps her hand to her mouth, letting out a snarl of frustration and turning away.
Zuko grabs her shoulder, bends down a little so he's level with her. "Hey. Hey, look at me," he orders, and she grudgingly flickers her eyes up at him, and then back down. He takes what he can work with and continues. "Emotions are the only thing, the one thing that differ you from that guy. Got it?" he says roughly. He's trying to be nice, really, but it's too difficult to be nice to this girl who still hates him, still blames him for her troubles. "It won't feel like you made the right decision; it won't for awhile. You'll feel sick all of the time; you'll regret it; you'll rethink the scene thousands of times over again before you finally move on. But you made the decision based on who you are, not what you believe the man deserved. You did everything right!" he tells her fiercely, from experience.
Silence. The rain lessens. Katara finally looks up at him. "You sound like your uncle," she says softly. "But meaner." A tiny smile flutters across her face, and Zuko lets go of her shoulder like it's made of ice. He straightens up, a bit embarrassed of the compliment.
"Well, uh…"
"I can't leave," she tells him. "Not yet." The rain is suddenly gone, and the world is quiet all around them. Appa sneezes once in the background.
Zuko watches her, says nothing, waits for her to finish.
"I'm not going to do anything rash. I'm not going back," she tells him. "But I want to wait here… just wait and see if he'll—I don't know. Apologize." A false smirk lifts up her lips.
Zuko purses his. "You think I'm going to leave you here alone and fetch Aang for you? I'm not a fool."
"You'll be back by tomorrow," Katara says stiffly. "I'll stay here, on the beach. I just—I want to see if he'll come."
"He won't," Zuko says. "He's terrified of you. He's a crazy old man who has nothing better to do but go shopping for his mother! You think he's going to risk death to come and apologize? He already did that with his nose pressed in the mud!" Zuko yells. "You think it made a difference to him?!"
Katara glares up at him. "Do what you want, but I'm staying." He watches her stride away and up onto the dock, to the edge, where she sits in the puddles on the wood comfortably, like it's dry, and stares out at the stormy skies.
Zuko grits his teeth and stomps up onto the dock after her; water droplets jump with each clomp.
"Look, I'm sorry for what I just said, but do you really think I'm stupid?"
"Zuko, please." Her voice is soft, and Zuko remembers stupidly that he just followed her to kill a strange man on faith alone. Can't he trust her one more night?
He frowns into her back, at the brown hair drying in the air. He can barely see her outline. "I'll be back tomorrow."
"I'll be right here," she tells him quietly. "Thank you."
He turns around; stops; whirls back to face her shadow. "If I have to, I'll check when I get back—"
"Do what you want," she says, and he vaguely sees her waving her hand as if to dismiss him. He chokes back a growl.
"Be careful," he warns.
"As always."
He wants to say more, but stops, walks to Appa and says the embarrassing 'yip yip' and he and Appa are off into the darkness, leaving Katara's shadow on the dock below.
Appa half-falls into the wet earth at the campsite, exhausted by flying and no sleep and more flying. Zuko ignores it and jumps off of the creature gracefully. He looks up to see Aang and Sokka running toward him.
"What happened?" Aang asks fretfully, eyes wide, and Zuko pities the boy and his obvious love for the 'perfect girl' he must idolize. Katara, perfect… Zuko wonders if this is the first time Aang has ever seen a different side of Katara, angry and dangerous but still a part of the girl he supposedly loves. It isn't hard to figure out if one just watches Aang that he is smitten with the wrong ideas.
"She's still at the island." He pauses. "She wants you all to come." He looks at Sokka; the boy's face is a giant frown, probably still dwelling on the words Katara spoke earlier: "Then you didn't love her like I did!"
Suki says she'll watch the camp, and Aang, Sokka, and Toph get on Appa. Aang takes the reins. They're off again.
It's early morning now, and they fly over the grass, then the water, bits of islands as they go further and further.
Finally, around noon, Aang turns around and asks Zuko what happened. No one has spoken and Aang's words are the first to break the tense silence.
Zuko sighs. "She didn't do it. She couldn't do it. We found the wrong guy first, and she was so angry then… very angry." He pauses, decides to leave out the part where she twisted his body from inside, making him bow to her will. If Aang doesn't approve of her anger, he would surely disapprove of her violence. "But when we found the real guy—the real guy—" he looks over at Sokka, understands this is important for him too. "—She didn't do it. She let him go." Aang's expression of relief is evident. Sokka kneels closer to Zuko.
"Did he say why he did it?" he whispers, so serious it startles the prince.
"Your mother told him she was the last Waterbender in the south. They were trying to capture them all, once…"
"Hama," Sokka, Aang, and Toph all say at once. Zuko ignores it and continues.
"But instead he just murdered her." Silence. "She was protecting Katara."
Aang says nothing, turns back around, but Zuko can see the pride radiating off of Aang, like he's beaten Zuko at some sort of contest. It frustrates him. Katara's choices are her choices. If Aang influenced them, that just helps the old man she didn't obliterate.
"You really are all goody-goodies," he mutters under his breath, crossing his arms, shivering from the air and his cold clothes. No one hears him, thank goodness.
He thinks of Katara and hopes she will smile again. Not that tense one, the angry one that he's seen since he's joined them. The one from the catacombs, when she touched his scar and smiled with sincerity, with happiness, with hope.
She hugs him tight. He feels her hair against his cheek, her breath against his neck, her small body wrapped in his own embrace. She pulls away, smiles at him with that smile from Ba Sing Se, and Zuko feels relief and peace and something else quite different.